


Time Left For Love

by ilovebadmovies



Category: Glee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-03
Updated: 2011-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-15 08:38:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/159034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilovebadmovies/pseuds/ilovebadmovies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don't ask how he pays the hospital bills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Left For Love

I have been a nurse for twenty years and I have never seen a family like theirs. Granted I work in Lima, Ohio not Detroit. Sarah is our patient; she’s ten and not doing very well. For the past four years she has been getting treatment for Cystic Fibrosis. She has two older siblings Hannah and Noah, both only in high school. There is no mother, no father, no grandparents, aunts or uncles. It is just the three of them. I don’t know how the two of them manage to pay for the treatment but we have taken to not asking. Whatever it is, I’m sure I don’t want to know, they always pay in cash. Everyone, the doctor, nurses and accountants never say anything and never ask. We are all going with plausible deniability. Sarah needs all the help she can get. Noah and Hannah spend as much time with their baby sister as possible. None of us enforce visitation hours with them, after all this time it would be weird if they weren’t here. We don’t know Hannah or Noah very well but we know Sarah. The girl is a fighter and the sweetest little angel you could ever hope to meet. She smiles all the time, we all take turns going in to talk to her, color with her or watch TV with her. She breaks your heart and gives you hope at the same time.  
Hannah doesn’t come in as much as she used to. She is in denial about what is happening. She has managed to convince herself that Sarah is going to get better and come home. She talks about Sarah coming home and making plans for the future. Noah and Sarah humor her. Everyone but Hannah seems to know that pretty soon she is going to stop coming all together. Sarah and Noah both know what’s coming. They have talked about Sarah not making it; they have both learned to accept it. They stop worrying about what will be and just spend all the time they can together.  
Sarah’s eyes light up every time she sees her big brother. He spends more time here than me, only leaving to change clothes and work. We still don’t ask what he does; there is no legal way he can make as much money as he does in such a short amount of time. It is a miracle that he has been able to keep up with the payments after Hannah took a page out of their mother’s book abandoning them. Noah is the only thing in life Sarah knows she can count on, except for the inevitable. He sits and colors with her for hours, he reads her book after book, watches stupid Disney shows and sings for her. Watching him with her is the best part of my day. He squishes his large muscular frame into the tiny bed with her, most nights she falls asleep curled into his side.  
It’s the middle of the night and I’m sitting at the nurse’s station sipping coffee and filling out paperwork. Something has felt off all day and when I get a page I know why. His eyes meet mine when I come through the door and my stomach sinks. She looks like she is sleeping in his arms just like every night but the heart monitor says different. He lies with her stroking her hair while I step out of the room to make the necessary calls and cry.  
I know when he walks out the doors after coming in to make his last payment I will never see him again. It doesn’t matter. He will never forget us or what happened here. Everywhere he goes he will carry this with him. As I start my rounds again I know I will too.


End file.
